The years had passed for Fito since his last fishing trip. A steady decline in health resulted in limits of his physical abilities. Once active in the outdoor life, the Brownsville resident had gone 15 years without fishing. Fito’s mother, Meg Beumel, thought those days were over for her son. Then via Facebook she heard of Fishing’s Future. The nonprofit organization is based in South Padre Island and has chapters…
Hansheng Lei came to the United States from China in 2001 with no idea the endless frontier would lead him to Brownsville. Lei is a professor in the computer science department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His academic office on University Boulevard in Brownsville is a handful of blocks away from his business office at a warehouse that’s adjacent to the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates.…
Mateo Leal saw the burgeoning growth of Rio Grande Valley cities in the early 2000s and noted a gap in how some markets were served. “How about the communities on the fringes of the Valley?” It’s a question Edward Leal recalled his father asking when the family first envisioned the hardware stores that today dot Hidalgo County. Rural areas on the outskirts of city limits were poised for growth but…
Mohamed Sharaf found kindred spirits in Mercedes that he said reminded him of his father’s farming and agricultural homeland in Syria. The vice president for development of the Waxahachie-based Victron Energy Inc. examined various South Texas markets for a site to build a high-end travel center that would be reminiscent of a Buc-ee’s, with a look reflecting a community’s history and heritage. In visiting the Rio Grande Valley, Sharaf was…
Brownsville native and longtime educator Dr. Juliet Garcia will receive the nation’s highest civilian honor today in Washington D.C. President Joe Biden will award The Presidential Medal of Freedom to the former longtime president of the University of Texas at Brownsville at the White House. For Garcia, it is the culmination of both a life in education and as a local, regional and national leader in the field of higher…
Peggy Harris offers a full-catering menu from her rural Cameron County on a farm-to-market road that still looks like the Rio Grande Valley of citrus groves and sorghum fields. A mother cow with its young calf munch in a pasture near the garage space-turned-commercial kitchen where Harris has set up her Peggy’s Cakes & More. She said her business has outgrown the compact and efficient kitchen from which she caters…
South Padre Island Police Chief Claudine O’Carroll didn’t know what to fully expect heading into March’s spring break 2022 and the following Easter holiday week in April. Both 2020 and 2021 were peculiar ones. Spring break traffic in 2020 was light to at times non-existent. A bit of a rebound occurred in 2021, with more families on the Island over the usual college-aged spring breakers who had their routines thrown…
Fred W. Rusteberg was known as a gentleman, a soft-spoken and persistent advocate for his banking company and community. Rusteberg could also bring it, when need be, a steely resolve emerging when he saw an injustice or inequity that required a challenge. One of those times occurred about 20 years ago when the chancellor of the University of Texas System visited Brownsville. It was to be a festive occasion in…
For Steven Rodriguez, there’s streaming television viewing at home – and then there’s the movies. “The experience of the big screen is something you can’t get at home,” Rodriguez said recently at the Cinemark 16 in Harlingen. “Any big movie, a Marvel or DC, we make a date and we’re here. Let’s get our popcorn and watch it on a big screen.” It’s the movie-returning demographic that the Plano-based Cinemark…
The Expressway 83 space near the Rio Grande Valley Premium Outlets will soon have a major restaurant and fueling stop development as a 12,000-square-foot travel center comes to Mercedes. Waxahachie-based Victron Energy Inc. has broken ground on the development, which will be located on the intersection of the expressway’s frontage road and Mile 2 E Road. The travel center will serve as the centerpiece of the development, which will also…